The clouds have knit themselves into a gray coverlet and the wind is picking up. Stray leaves go whirling into the air and flit momentarily with the small birds that have come to the feeder. Little gray and white juncoes sit on the fence, sharing space with the downy woodpeckers and the wee brown finches. Every hardwood has shed its summer leaves. They wave their stick fingers and clatter their branches like castanets. Though bits of the lawn are still green, it is last summer's color and it's liberally sprinkled with buff and brown. Every surrounding meadow is a pale expanse of wheat colored stubble. Against the cobbled bark of a maple tree sprays of winterberry glow red and mahogany oak leaves cling tight to their parents.
I have replaced the Thanksgiving corn with a beaded bittersweet wreath. Tomorrow I will fill the suet feeders and buy more birdseed. I collected pinecones this fall and will slather them with peanut butter for the squirrels. If I give them their own treats at wood's edge they come less frequently to plunder the birds' food. I have turned the garden beds and put away the patio furniture. I like the spareness of this season when I can see the bones of the earth and smell the clean, metallic scent of snow on the air.
Winter can come now.
